“Look, I should’ve told you earlier in the week,”
David said. “She came to me about the gambling thing, but she told
me she wouldn’t report me if I didn’t blow her cover, so I guess
I was scared. And, you know, I wasn’t totally sure it was you until
. . . until now.”

I slipped back out of sight and lifted my wrist to my mouth.
It was risky, but we were in the middle of nowhere. If I didn’t
alert my mother as to our location ASAP, there was a chance that
Danielle would evade capture.

God! I still couldn’t believe she was the bad guy!

“What’s going on?” Jon mouthed to me as we
moved soundlessly back to the center of the loft.

I lifted one finger to tell him to wait. David was babbling
so all I could do was hope that his voice would mask the sound of
my own.

“Attention, Chief Stratford, we’re in the old stable past
the soccer field to the west of the school. Suspect is here now.
All units converge.”

Jon’s face was a mixture of suspicion and
approbation. It was kinda
cool.

I heard a floorboard creak, and half a second later, I noticed something
move out of the corner of my eye. I was about to shout a warning
when Jon and I both were grabbed from behind and pulled away from
each other. Jon’s legs flailed out, kicking at the floor, but there
was nothing I could do to help him. My own arms were pinned to my
sides.

After a fleeting moment
of panic, I realized that my assailant had
no idea what he was doing. His arms were locked around my upper
body, but he’d left my hands free.

Yet another advantage of being a chick fighter. Those who
don’t know you don’t think you’re a threat.

Jon and I were being dragged toward a set of stairs near the
far wall. I had no idea what they planned to do with us, but I wasn’t going
to let them do it. I planted my feet on the ground, leaned forward
with all my might, and knocked my attacker off balance. The second
he faltered, I bent at the waist and flipped him over my back to
the hard floor. Dust rained down from the ceiling and the
scoundrel groaned
in pain.

He had shaggy hair and a bulky frame and looked vaguely familiar,
like I’d seen him in a movie or something, but I couldn’t place him.

“What’s going on up there?” Danielle’s voice called out.

“We’ll be right down,” the other guy answered from across
the loft.

Then I heard a punch crack across a jaw. I turned around to
find that Jon had broken free and was wailing on his man. He actually was
a pretty adept fighter.
For a moment I forgot where I was and simply watched Jon go, impressed.
Then my guy got up, grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back.

“Give me a break,” I said. I used my free hand and whacked
him hard in the nose, then when he was doubled over in pain I whirled easily
away from him. This guy had no idea who he was dealing with. He
thought a little arm twist could
constrain me?
Ha!

But now I’d pissed him off. He rushed me in an attempt to
tackle me to the ground, but I lifted my knee at just the right
moment and brought it up into his solar plexus. The guy went sprawling
to the floor. He wasn’t turning out to be a very
formidableadversary. I walked
over and picked him up by the scruff of the neck.

“Had enough?” I asked, allowing myself a moment of triumph.

“Hardly.”

He jabbed backward with his elbow and hit me directly in the gut.
I doubled over for a second, surprised, and then he was on his feet
again. This time he fought me like a man, but his punches were
imprecise and he was no
match for my speed. I ducked, weaved and dodged, and only a couple
of his jabs hit home. As we sparred our
way across the loft, he started to grow winded. He was ungainly and
his fighting was sort of pedestrian.
In a way, I actually was kind of bored.

As I wore the guy down, I kept wondering what was going on with
Jon, whether he was okay, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my own
opponent. Letting my guard down, even with an
untutored fighter,
could be deadly.

The guy backed me up to the wall and came at me with a powerful
punch. I ducked and his hand went through the stable
wall. He yelled out in pain and I could tell it was
excruciating.
All the better for me. I planted my feet firmly on the floor and
yanked him free, using my momentum to whirl him halfway across the
loft. The guy grasped his bleeding hand,
gaping at
it in wonder. I rushed at him and hit him with an uppercut, ready
to finish him off. He stumbled toward the edge of the loft.

Suddenly my heart seized up. He was going to go over! And
as much as I wanted to kick his butt, I didn’t really want
to finish him off. I wasn’t ready to kill somebody.

His eyes widened in fear and I made to grab for him, but somehow
forgot that a little person like me couldn’t stop a big guy like that
who was already falling. No matter how strong I was.

It was over so quickly I barely had time to register the fact
that I was falling. We slammed into the ground, me falling on a
few inches of hay, him landing with a thud on the hardwood floor.
My landing hurt, but I rolled over as quickly as possible to protect
myself from another onslaught.

That little bit of hay turned out to be my
salvation.
The thug, who hadn’t been so lucky, was out cold.
“Tag!” Danielle shouted, running over to us. She dropped to her knees
next to the prostrate body
and suddenly it hit me. I knew where I’d seen this guy before. He
was Danielle’s boyfriend—the one in the picture on her dresser.
They were wrapped up in this drug business together.

I struggled to my feet as Danielle fussed over her boyfriend,
who I was relieved to see was still breathing. David apparently
had fled because we were the only ones in the room—that is, until
the other thug finally succeeded in dragging Jon down the stairs.
I looked up to make sure he was okay and instantly my blood ran
cold. Jon’s hands were fettered behind
his back with a strip of cloth, and his slimy-looking attacker held
a gun to his head.

A trickle of blood ran from Jon’s nose, and he stared at me
with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Was he angry, scared,
begging for help? It was impossible to tell.

“We spotted these two sneaking in upstairs when we were on
our way in with the goods,” the man said to Danielle, who finally
rose to her feet. She turned to look at me, her face pinched, her
eyes shiny with tears.

“How could you do this to me?” she demanded. “I thought we were
friends!”

My mouth dropped open. She was totally delusional. “How could
I do this to you? Danielle! You’re
a drug dealer!”

“Kim! We have the place surrounded!” my mother’s voice shouted
through a bullhorn. They were the most
exquisite words I’d
ever heard. I couldn’t help smiling when I saw Danielle’s face fall.

“What’re you going to do now?” I asked.

Danielle glanced at Tag, who was still
recumbent on the floor, then
looked at the other man. They exchanged some kind of message with
their eyes. Then the man threw Jon at me with such force that we
tumbled to the ground in a tangled mess of arms and legs. Jon couldn’t
stop himself, what with his arms tied
inextricably,
and he fell right on top of me. I shoved him away rather
callously so I could
see what was happening. The thug was gone and Danielle was just
disappearing through a back door.

“Stay here,” I said to Jon.

And then, without so much as a backward glance, I took off
after Danielle.